[G4] Switching internal optical drive to external case

[Richard Klein]

Thanks for all the replies!  We've tried resetting the PRAM before, and 
I put a fresh battery in it before I sent it to her.  It shouldn't need 
Patchburn.  It's running OS X 10.4.8 and the DVR111 shows up as a 
supported drive when it shows up at all.  Besides, it doesn't recognize 
pre-recorded discs, either; this isn't just a problem with burning.  And 
the drive worked fine before I shipped it.

Some time this year I'll take a vacation and go visit her, but hopefully 
the firewire case will get the drive working until I can get down there.

-- 
Rich

nagable at comcast.net wrote:
> Tell her to shut down, unplug, remove battery, press PMU button and hold for ±2 seconds (little round brownish button on logic board near battery), wait about a minute, replace battery, close computer, replace plug and try again.  It worked on a client's G4.
> 
> Nate
>  -------------- Original message ----------------------
> From: Richard Klein <rich at richardklein.org>
>> I gave my little sister a 450MHz Gigabit Ethernet a while back.  It 
>> seemed fine when it was here, but it's been pretty flaky for her since 
>> she got it.  She's in Georgia and I'm in Massachusetts which makes it 
>> tough to fix anything for her.
>>
>> The biggest problem is that it rarely recognizes any discs inserted into 
>> the optical drive.  It's a Pioneer DVR111 that I bought brand new and 
>> installed just before I sent the computer to her.
>>
>> I saw this external case go on sale:
>> http://www.dealsonic.com/plpmsicousb2.html
>> I figure her disc problems are probably from a failing IDE controller on 
>> the motherboard, so maybe putting the drive in a firewire case will let 
>> her get some use out of it.  How will the G4 (running OS X Tiger) deal 
>> with having an external optical drive, but no internal optical drive? 
>> Has anyone tried this?